Miscellaneous Genera I
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Erygia spissa Guenée comb n. 
Felinia spissa Guenée, 1852, Hist. nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid. 7: 322.
Felinia spissata Guenée, 1852, Hist. nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid. 7: 400.
Briarda decens Walker, [1858] 1857, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 13: 1098.
Felinia spissa Guenée; Holloway, 1976: 32.


Erygia spissa

 
Diagnosis. The forewing ground colour is pale fawn-grey, variegated by fasciation. The postmedial is fine, irregular, broken, black, looped and stepped round the reniform; the antemedial is angled, the black extending basad, grading away. There is also a block of black on the costa between a paler outer component of the postmedial and the paler zigzag submarginal. The hindwing is basally fawn, grading brownish grey over the distal half. See also apicalis above.

Geographical range. Indian Subregion to New Guinea.

Habitat preference. Though uncommon, spissa has been recorded from the lowlands to 1930m. Lowland habitats include heath and coastal forests.

Biology. The larva was described and illustrated by Chey (1996). It is pale brown, with irregular darker brown longitudinal stripes and variegation that includes a blacker transverse mark, almost a band, on A2. The setae are on small tubercles.

Bell noted a larva that he originally mistook for that of Erygia reflectifascia Hampson, as it was almost identical. The prolegs on A3 and A4 are reduced. The description matches the larva illustrated by Chey, but includes reference to a fringe of filaments, some branched, like that in Erygia apicalis. This is not evident in the photograph in Chey, nor is it mentioned in the text.

The pupa lacks a bloom.

The host-plant recorded was
Paraserianthes falcataria (Leguminosae), and the species can be a pest in plantations of this exotic tree. Robinson et al. (2001) also noted Acacia and Xylia in the same family, the record of Xylia being from the note by Bell.

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